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Our Thanksgiving Celebrations!

We hope you all ate as much as we did during Thanksgiving. This was our second year celebrating Thanksgiving with our family - my side and his side.

Luckily this year, it wasn't back to back in the same day like last year. This year we did my family's Thanksgiving on Thursday and his family's on Friday.

We didn't have time to record or write our recipes, but we did have time to take a lot of pictures.

Turkey

This year was the first year my family and I had real turkey in our house and special thanks to Will and his dad for making this. Will's dad owns a restaurant in Chinatown and they do roast Turkey during Thanksgiving. Don't worry we didn't eat the turkey with the head on.

The turkey was delicious!!! It was my second time having turkey from Will's dad's restaurant. It was moist and full of deliciousness!

Food

Yep, it looked like there was buffet in my living room. My sister and her fiance brought a tremendous amount of food - love them for that! They brought roasted Brussels sprouts, asparagus, roasted peppers, mashed potato, sweet potato, and cranberry sauce. Delicious meal! Mom added a plate of vermicelli and Chinese stir-fry vegetables.

Flan

For dessert, my sister made Flan (for the very first time). It looked amazing and professionally made. I've never had flan before, so this was my first time.

I'm not sure if it's suppose to taste very sweet, but in my opinion it was a little too sweet for me. My sister's fiance brought strudel from Zabar's (one of my favorite desserts) and it was tasty and delish!

Jam-filled cookies

Everyone's been asking me about the special cookies I love to and am good at baking. On Black Friday, I literally went to sleep at 6:30AM and woke up three hours later and took the train home to bake my cookies since Will's oven has been out of service for 20+ years.

We sure made a lot of food. Everyone kind of brought their own food or helped in some way or another.

Cranberry Sauce

I've been trying to learn how to make cranberry sauce from scratch and I finally did, but I don't think this was the best. I think I could have done better. I added brown sugar, orange juice, cinnamon, and fresh cranberries. It wasn't too sweet, but a little tart for sure.

Mashed Potatoes

I made mashed potatoes. I added a lot of mashed potatoes and it took forever to mash, but eventually Will and I got it just right and topped it off with cilantro and parsley.

Lobster Salad

Will's cousin family made lobster salad. It looks just about like restaurant style. I finally learned the secret sauce that is used, now I can try to make this salad on y own. The salad was tasty and great!

Mashed Sweet Potato

Will's sister made this incredible mashed sweet potato topped with oatmeal and marshmallow. I've had this before at a previous family reunion, but I must admit this was excellent sweet potato! I fell in love with it and had several scoops of it. I love the crunchy sweetness from the marshmallow. This was my favorite dish throughout the night.

Overall, our Thanksgiving dinner was a delight. Good times, good food, and good laughs. How was your Thanksgiving?

Comments

What lovely looking Thanksgiving meals! Good thing my husband isn't looking at the turkey from your boyfriend's family's restaurant. He would say that it needed a little lettuce hat! Your sister's flan looks amazing, hard to believe it's her first try making it! In my experience it is typically very sweet. If it is made with sugar in the custard, you can just scale it back a bit. I make mine a lot softer than typical flans you purchase, or like many other versions because I add more milk which dilutes the sweetness.

As for my Thanksgiving dinner(s), I had lots of fun cooking my meals and enjoying the company of my guests. We hosted two, one for family and a potluck for the friends the Saturday before. For the potluck, I was supposed to only make the turkey but of course, in my usual behavior, I had to make several other sides and stuff. Also, we had deep fried a turkey this year the first time, which also turned out pretty awesome--juicy and moist.

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